photo credit: John Nakamura Remy cc
The world of television entertainment development is a fickle mistress. Sometimes word gets out about a series well before it has become official. Today Neil Gaiman, author of the book [amazon_link id=”0062080237″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]American Gods[/amazon_link] tweeted the following in response to a new round of articles detailing American Gods on HBO:
Seeing news stories about AMERICAN GODS being “officially greenlit” at HBO. These are just people talking on the internet & not true at all.
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 30, 2013
We aren’t too suprised to hear Neil say something like this. He’s probably been put on communication lockdown by the premium cable network. It does make some of the quotes he’s made in the recent past a bit confusing:
“I got the email yesterday saying that the final contractual tos and fros have been sorted out and I should be free within a couple of weeks to start writing.”
Or this one…
@HBOWatch I’m handing in the new draft of the pilot the moment that the Dr Who episode is off my plate for good…
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) October 17, 2012
So they’re obviously working on the project but there’s just no “official” word or “green light” as it were. We empathize with Neil on having to keep silent on one of his most beloved project’s future. There have even been reports of SIX SEASONS being confirmed but as we all know, HBO and most networks don’t work like that.. ever. So Neil is right: Don’t believe everything you read on the internet!
We hope HBO or Neil himself can confirm that the series is officially a-go in the coming months!
We’ll keep everyone posted.
Given what happened with “Good Omens” the movie back in 2002 I am not surprised that Neil is hesitant to confirm anything. On a sidenote “Good Omens” is supposed to be being made into a TV series as well. We will have to wait and see.
This is fucked up…a year ago it was all OK and been some talk about the budget and all more than a year passed and nothing….more than that they take back everything what they said…WTF??…if u ask me its gonna be like avatar 2….around 2020 someone will ask the Q…what the fuck went wrong???
‘American Gods’ remains my favorite novel of the millennium so far, and I desperately hope that HBO does a great job with it. May the production values be on a level with ‘Game of Thrones,’ but with much less auteur-istic tinkering with the plot and characters! It will be interesting to see how they handle all the little vignettes about the importation to America of the various gods and demigods.
Time to start playing the ‘Who would you cast as…?’ game, methinks. I could kinda see Michael Douglas as Mr. Wednesday, for starters. He’s starting to get that cadaverous sort of look as he ages, but one can still picture him having had a magnetic appeal to the ladies in his youth. And he would rock that glass eye.
Considering Neil himself is writing the series (or at least the pilot) I’m sure the plot will be kept intact. He’s said that the six season deal was just a rumor, but if it goes past two, they won’t be following the book anymore.
When I was reading this book for the first time over a decade ago I envisioned Mr. Wednesday as being Anthony Hopkins.
I don’t know if this has been discussed elsewhere, but this show is an obvious choice to fill the True Blood gap when that series ends. I would be surprised if this project isn’t in some ways contingent on the success (or failure) of it’s conclusion/reception.
Jacob, major props on you keeping track of this. This is by far the highest development on my radar. I’m in the middle of the book right now.
Jef and I have been kicking around that idea for a while now. Probably going to do a piece about it soon :)
Would love to read it.
I also keep trying to visualize the format of the storytelling for the series. Gaiman is so capable of crafting his stories into script form, but I can not help but visualize the historical/backstories of the gods as a Six Feet Under (a person’s death) type intro that ties later into the episode.
That’s a really interesting thought, Jonathan. I can’t wait until this becomes “official!” I’m so damn curious!
The guy seems to write this ‘draft’ for about a year now, though, so that’s what I find most worrisome, not the fact that the show isn’t officially greenlit and it will not have a thousand seasons. Gah, I hate when interesting projects seem to take forever to take off.